Beauty Beyond
by Inexcess
Summary: Another look at the 'magic' of Sam and Emily's imprint. Oneshot


…Beauty Beyond….

Emily's Perspective

(I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you) "Hey baby," Emily Uley said, looking up from her dinner, fried chicken with green beans, mashed potatoes, and onion rings. Her husband, all 6'5 of him, hulked in the doorway of her home. Oh Jesus. Her heart sped up, and the spoon slipped out of a suddenly sweaty hand. (Go kiss him. Pretend, you idiot!) "How was the patrol?" Wiping her hands on a dish towel and picking up the spoon, Emily went over and pulled herself on tiptoe to kiss him. The left side of her face formed a ruined grimace that contorted crustily, and she felt the familiar surge of emotion as her lips met his…hate.

She was filled with loathing, furious, despairing hate.

He had done this to her. He had taken away her options and her face, her cousin. Her entire life. He had completely ruined her, physically and mentally. Once, Emily had made a list of the things he had done for her.

Pros:

*I got married

*I'm supported

*He'll never leave me

Cons:

*He ripped my face off

*I'm terrified of leaving him, because he'll probably rip the right half off too

*I never, EVER loved this jerk

*He lost me my best friend and cousin, Leah

*I don't want his children; I don't want to damn them to be shapeshifters

*He's taken away any other option of love I ever had.

*Fuck, I'm miserable here. I'm going to be miserable the rest of my life.

The cons list continued. At item one hundred and sixty two, she had put the pen down and screamed furiously. Because this wasn't the life she wanted. This was a life she had been forced into.

"Patrol was okay," Sam boomed, and Emily kept her face under control. (Don't flinch. He'll probably go all quasi-concerned on you. 'Oh my looooooooooove, are you okay?' 'No, you fucking idiot, I'm not. You've ripped my face off and I hate you, thanks. But oh, yeah. I don't have a choice. Thanks to your magical sparkling PERFECT imprint!')

"That's great," she smiled back at him through clenched teeth. (No, it wasn't. It was terrible. Why couldn't Jacob attack him and rip his throat out?) "Dinner's nearly ready."

"I can't eat yet," Sam said immediately, looking regretful and picturesque in his regret. "I've gotta go see the elders, honey. Remember? We're discussing attack positions for Jacob's pack."

"What? You're attacking his pack?" Emily stared at him, her hand loosening on her death grip of the spoon in fear. "But…Leah…" Leah and Seth were in that pack! Didn't he care?

"She made the choice," said Sam firmly. "It's no good disputing it, Em. We won't harm her unless she makes us, anyway. We're just going to force them to come back and either run Jake off or kill him." He tried to kiss her. Hysteria rising in her throat, Emily ducked away.

"Dinner's burning," she whispered, turning her back on him. "See you when you get…back." The words ached as they cut their way up her throat. Sam paused for a minute, then wrapped his arms around her, apparently sensing her distress. She shoved them off. "Really," she snapped, "I'm fine. Love you. See you later."

Sam left. Turning, she watched him hulk down the driveway, and then he took off at a lope, his giant frame jogging away. Shaking with grief, Emily shut the door, leaned up against it, and then slid down. A strange, keening howl filled the air, and it took Emily a minute to realize that they were tearing up from her swollen throat, filling the air with primitive fear and sadness. And she couldn't stop them.

………………………………………………………………………………………….

When Leah and Emily were little, they played with these pretty china dolls. Now, Emily realized they must have cost her mother a fortune to buy, but then she only cared about how pretty they were. The dolls were dressed in pink and yellow lacy dresses (pink for Emily, yellow for Leah.), and matching blue eyes stared blankly from rosy faces with smiling ruby lips. Both had glossy curls that were blonde, and the cascading locks peeped from under pretty white-knit sunhats. Emily named hers Gracie. Leah called hers Penelope.

Gracie and Penelope were best friends as well as sisters, and the two cousins spent days arranging intricate plots to put them in. But by far the favorite plot was when a lovely bandit (made of twigs) kidnapped Gracie. Penelope raced to save her friend, along with her best friend, the handsome Prince Honor. (Also made of twigs.) When Penelope arrived to rescue Gracie from the bandit, it was to discover that Gracie and the bandit had fallen in love. But she was happy for her sister, and married Prince Honor in a double wedding with Gracie and the Bandit.

Now, Emily was Gracie, but the bandit that had stolen her away was Sam, and he was far from her true love. And since Leah's Prince Honor was also Sam, she wasn't racing to save Gracie/Emily from anything.

How ironic that Emily had once enjoyed a good metaphor.

……………………………………………………………………………………………..

"Imprinting, it's the most beautiful thing that can happen to you." (Rachel.)

"It's like true love, Emily. But it's so pure, so magical, that nothing is more fit to you." (Sam)

"What happens…it's unexplainable. It's like everything make sense. It's like you're tied to him, but you don't mind, because he's tied to you too. Isn't it great?" (Kim)

Imprinting was unexplainable, all right. But Emily didn't think it was in a good way. Back at the Makah tribe, she'd been in love with Devon. He was strong and honest, but also shy and gentle. When Emily got half of her face ripped off, of course the news traveled back, and Devon tried to visit her.

Sam had been in her room, at the time, and when Devon had come in, of course Sam had seen her eyes light up, the way she forced herself to sit up for him. "Devon," she'd breathed, and he hadn't looked repulsed by the change in her facial structure. Rather, he'd hugged her so close, only she could hear when he whispered something to her.

"You're beautiful. You will never stop being beautiful." And he'd pulled back and taken her hands in his, including her right hand, where his wedding ring rested on her fourth finger.

Yes, Devon had been her fiancé. For two glorious days, before she'd visited Leah, Emily had had a fiancé. Devon's proposal was so beautiful, Emily had cried for two hours before she could say yes, but her empathetic head shaking had given him her wordless answer.

That night, while Emily lay sleeping, Sam attacked and murdered Devon in his hotel room. In his wolf form, he viciously tore Emily's only true love apart, to the point where body parts would later be found to be scattered in an eight-mile radius.

Imprinting could be called many things, but beautiful was not one of them.

……………………………………………………………………………………………..

Emily left dinner on the stove and went up to her room, the room she and Sam shared, and, still sobbing, shaking with so many emotions she couldn't hold them, Emily riffled through the closet, until her hand closed on the object she was looking for. Emily was crying for thousands of things.

For Devon, because all he'd done was love her.

For Claire, because this was the life she was doomed to live.

For Leah, because her true love had been taken by Emily, and Emily didn't even want him. And because Leah could never had children.

For any children Emily might have given birth to, because she was ending that possibility now. But at least these children would not become wolves.

For Gracie and Penelope, because Penelope had given up without ever finding her Prince Honor, without ever knowing love. And Gracie was never kidnapped by her bandit, but rather by Prince Honor, who wasn't the man Penelope thought he was.

And she cried for herself, because nothing was right, nothing at all.

The sobs made her hand unsteady. But everything stilled when Emily took the already loaded and ready gun up and held it against her head. Even her tears stopped momentarily, but her heart…her heart was thundering. It was galloping like a wild horse. It was pleading with her, but she didn't know if it wanted her to stop or go. Emily only saw one way out of this Imprint, one way out of this horror and grief, and she seized it like a starving child.

Her finger pulled. There was a shattering buzz of pain, and her heart thundered wilder and wilder, and then suddenly she was racing. She was running with Leah, and all of Leah's shattered dreams. She was running with Claire and her childhood innocence, and she was running for herself, faster and faster, living on the wind. And then beside her there was a warmth she had never known, but she didn't have to look over to see Devon, who was running with her, warmer than even Sam's hot skin.

And they ran on the wind, arms outstretched, and Emily ran with everything from her past, absorbed it all, loved it all, embraced all of it with a vicious passion. And she knew something that none of the werewolves seemed to have been able to look beyond.

There was a magic greater than imprinting, and she held it all here, as she stood in the wind with Devon, as she pulled up higher and higher with him by her side. It was a magic that resonated deep within her. It was love, pure and undiluted, vicious and complicated and spiraling and joyful. It was what she felt with Devon right now.

The imprint washed away from her skin and her mind, and she let clear freedom take its place.

…………I am not trying to promote death as being the greatest thing you will ever have. Please DON'T take this fic that way. You will all be able to find true love without shooting yourselves and whatnot. I just wanted to say that imprinting, to be honest, is just a creepy and twisted way of thinking about true love……….


End file.
